Isabel dos Santos

Family and education

Isabel dos Santos was born in Baku, Azerbaijan SSR, the oldest daughter of Angola's President José Eduardo dos Santos and his first wife, the Russian-born Tatiana Kukanova, whom he met while studying in the Soviet republic of Azerbaijan. Her father's parents came from São Tomé and Príncipe. She studied electrical engineering at King's College in London. There she met her husband from Zaire (now Democratic Republic of the Congo), Sindika Dokolo, a son of a millionaire from Kinshasa and his Danish wife.

Career

In the past 20 years Isabel dos Santos has held management positions in a number of companies listed on European stock exchanges. Isabel dos Santos returned from London in the early 1990s to join her father in Luanda and started working as a project manager engineer for Urbana 2000, a subsidiary of Jembas Group, that had won a contract to clean and disinfect the city. Following that, she set up a trucking business. The widespread use of walkie-talkie technology paved the way for her subsequent foray into telecoms. In 1997, she started her first business, opening the Miami Beach Club, one of the first night clubs and beach restaurants on the Luanda Island. Over a period of nearly 20 years she expanded her business interests, leading to the creation of several holdings, in Angola and mostly abroad, making substantial investments in high-profile entreprises, especially in Portugal. In June 2016, she was appointed by President dos Santos as chairwoman of Sonangol, the Angolan state oil company. The controversial appointment in the wake of similar appointments of children of the president to key posts led to speculation in the Angolan media in March 2017 that Isabel dos Santos would leave Sonangol, which proved to be unfounded.

Investments in Portugal

Since 2008 she has had interests in telecommunications, media, retail, finance and the energy industry, both in Angola and in Portugal. In addition to her commercial interest in oil and diamonds, Isabel dos Santos also owns shares in the Angola cement company Nova Cimangola. Jadeium, a company held by Isabel dos Santos, acquired 4.918% of ZON Multimedia shares from Spain’s Telefonica.

Through the Netherlands-based Unitel International Holdings BV, a company controlled by Isabel dos Santos, the Angolan businesswoman is the main shareholder of ZON Multimédia with 29% since July 2012. She is member of the board of Angolan bank in Lisbon, Banco BIC Português, and through Santoro Holding she holds 20% stakes at Banco Português de Investimento. She has other major stakes with the Angolan state oil company Sonangol through their mutual European Law holding, based in the Netherlands, named Esperanza Holding, in Portuguese Galp Energia. Isabel dos Santos is a founding member and Board member of Banco BIC Português, which recently acquired Banco Português de Negócios, a nationalized bank.

Since November 2012 Isabel dos Santos is a non-executive board member of ZON. In December 2012, Isabel dos Santos announced the invitation for a merger of ZON with Sonaecom, proved in March 2013 by the General Assembly. Eight months later, after the green light from the Competition Authority, the merger of the two companies was formalized on August 27, 2013, with the transfer to ZOPT, a special purpose vehicle created to advance the operation which became the owner of more 50% of the capital of the new group, the shares that Isabel dos Santos and Sonaecom hold on Zon and Optimus respectively. There was a capital increase of ZOPT through contribution in kind from 50 to 716 million euros, while Sonaecom subscribed 358 million shares of the company, by delivering 81.8% of its stake in Optimus. The Angolan businesswoman, on her turn, subscribed exactly the same number of shares of ZOPT, through her holdings Kento and Unitel International, delivering 28.8% of the stake in ZON. With this transfer of shareholdings in Optimus and Zon, Sonaecom and Isabel dos Santos became holders of over 50% stake in the merged company: Zon Optimus SGPS. On this occasion, a new strategy for the company was announced by Isabel dos Santos, with a multimarket vision. On October 1, 2013, Isabel dos Santos attended the first General Assembly of Zon Optimus. Isabel dos Santos’ investments in Portugal are in listed companies, which are therefore subject to official supervision of the Portuguese Securities Market Commission (CMVM).

In November 2014, Isabel dos Santos launched a takeover bid for Portugal Telecom, SGPS, S.A., valuing the firm’s shares at €1.35 a share, in what was seen as a rival bid to a previous €7 billion offer from Altice. Though the offer made by Altice is on PT Portugal, not on PT SGPS. On December 1, 2014, the Angolan businesswoman formally registered her offer at the Portuguese Securities Market Commission (Comissão do Mercado de Valores Mobiliários, CMVM, in Portuguese).

In January 2017 Unitel, led by Isabel dos Santos, officialized the purchase of 2% of Banco Fomento de Angola (BFA bank) from BPI for 28 million euros and now controls 51.9% of the bank's capital. The operation was approved by sector regulators, namely the National Bank of Angola (BNA) in December 2016. In February 2017 Isabel dos Santos decides to sell her position in Banco BPI, following the takeover bid launched by CaixaBank. All in all, Isabel dos Santos arrived in 2009, stepped out in 2017 and won more than 80 million euros: Santos’ capital gain comes not only from the sale of the 18.5% holding on BPI, but also from the dividends from 2008 and 2009, worth around 12.6 million euros.

Investments in Angola

With 51% control of Condis, Isabel dos Santos signed a joint partnership with the Portuguese Sonae group in April 2011 for the development and operation of a retail trading company in Angola. The entry in Angola by the Portuguese group led by Paulo de Azevedo will be performed by the Continente (Angola), which will open the first supermarket by 2013 in Angola.

Focus on telecommunications

The starting point was the creation of Unitel in partnership with Portugal Telecom, after a tender process she considered fair. Also through Unitel International Holding, a platform for Unitel investments where Portugal Telecom has no presence, she acquired the mobile operator T+, in Cape Verde and gained the license for the establishment of the second telecom operator in São Tomé and Príncipe. Under this investment Isabel dos Santos announced during a visit to São Tomé and Príncipe that Unitel will invest in education in the country to train engineers, managers and other technicians and also focus on job creation.

By 2015, Isabel dos Santos owned a share of satellite-TV operator ZAP, that had in December 2013 acquired the rights to distribute Forbes in a number of Portuguese speaking countries, namely Portugal, Angola and Mozambique. It had been announced that most of the content would be produced by a local team, complemented by content for the North American edition, therefore potentially allowing influence on Forbes content. It was initially planned that the first edition of the Portuguese language Forbes would be published during the second quarter of 2014.

Holdings

Holdings of Isabel dos Santos in the recent years: